“I don’t want an apology, so if you’re looking to feel less guilty, forget it. The damage is already done.” Turning back to me in accusation, she tried to free her arm, but I held tight.
“He’s getting calls from Santa Fe, too,” I said.
That stilled her. After staring at me for several beats, she swallowed. Then, apparently not yet ready to deal with Santa Fe, she focused on my complicity. “You talked with him. You learned this and didn’t tell me. You knew he’d be here.”
“I love you, Grace, and I love Chris. I want both of you safe.” When she said nothing, I stressed, “You are not alone here. It’s us four against him. Edward will referee, Jay will protect your rights, and I will personally shut Ben down if he goes off the deep end.”
She looked about to argue. Then her eyes slid to the side, where a coattree held three very different coats, and although her back was to the men, I knew she was realizing that one controlled her job, one her son’s legal case, and one her future. Her copper eyes met mine with resentment, but behind the contacts was worry as well. Putting her back to the door, she folded her arms to hold herself together and turned her glare on Ben.
A large manila envelope hung from one hand, but it stayed at his side. His voice was surprisingly quiet. Also surprising, I saw no arrogance. There was something sad about him, which might have made me think about his personal feelings for Grace, if I hadn’t been caught up in his words.
“Thirteen years ago, a woman named Greta Brandt disappeared from Santa Fe with her two-year-old son. Someone called me to say you’re that woman. I researched the facts of the case. Height, weight, smile—all the same. You look different in other ways”—he raised the envelope, suggesting there were photos inside—“but those ways could easily be cosmetic.”
Edward and I exchanged a worried glance. Cosmetic? Easily.
Grace said nothing. Her hands curled into fists, knuckles white against the inside of her elbows as Ben went on.
“Greta Brandt had gone through an ugly divorce. Her husband was wealthy and well connected. He successfully made a case that she was an unfit mother, so he got full custody of the boy. When she took off with him, she was charged with kidnapping.”
I felt a sinking sensation. But I had guessed it, hadn’t I? The pieces fit. Totally aside from makeup, hair color, and contact lenses, it explained multiple rounds of plastic surgery.
Edward’s eyes found mine again. They were uneasy, like he, too, knew where this was heading. I had driven Grace to the plastic surgeon. I had done her makeup and given her woodsy brown hair, which I had cut in layers to veil side views of her face. Before that I had given her auburn curls, and before that an ashy bob. I was totally complicit in helping her hide.
Grace raised her chin. “That woman couldn’t be me. I am not anunfit mother. I love my son. I have done things for him that most mothers would never do. I’ve turned over mylifefor him.”
“She was never found,” Ben said. “Both of them gone without a trace.” He dropped the envelope on Edward’s desk, then rubbed his palms on his jeans. It was a nervous gesture, coming from a man who had surely been in far more threatening situations. “Here’s the thing, Grace. The woman who called me was the Brandts’ cook, so she saw what went on in that house. She says you’re Greta Brandt; you say you’re not. She has photos from papers back then and ones from papers now. She wants to sell me her story, and if I don’t buy it, she’ll show those pictures to someone else, so whether it’s true or not, it’ll come out.”
“Libel,” warned Jay.
“Not if corroborated,” argued Ben. “For what it’s worth, she said the boy’s father was scum.”
“Batshitscum,” Grace cried in a burst of venom before realizing the admission. Her panicked gaze scanned the others before returning to Ben. Her eyes welled, and a tremor hit her voice. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because despite what you think,” he said, sounding more sincere than I wanted him to, “despite what others think, I’m not the enemy. I don’t make up stories. I do my research and report on it. Right now, I can only find one side of this story. There has to be another one.”
In the silence that followed, I pictured the other side, which would be filled with a slew of details I didn’t want to know. I looked at Edward again. His mouth moved just enough to share his silent,Fuck.Oh yeah, we were on the same page, right there in my probation agreement.
“Only one side of the story,” Ben repeated, “and, trust me, I tried for the other. Can’t see the court proceedings, because they’re sealed. Can’t ask the boy, because the boy was two when it happened. Won’t get anything from neighbors and friends, because our man is that intimidating and that powerful.” He screwed up his face at Grace. “Did you mountanykind of case in your defense?”
Jay neared Grace with surprising speed. “Don’t answer,” he told her. “Don’t confirm or deny. He’s media. He can’t be trusted.”
He was speaking as a lawyer, I knew. But I also knew he had slept with Grace, so his distrust of Ben might have been personal.
I stepped in. Hell, I was already in it up to my ears, so what was a little more? Besides, I was the one who had set up this meeting. “If anyone distrusts the press, it’s me,” I said, “but he claimed he wanted to help, and that all he wanted to do here was talk. He said he wouldn’t even write anything down.”
“Oh, he will,” Grace argued, “if not here, then when he leaves. He smells a book, and what could be better than two opposing stories, lots of conflict, lots of drama, lots of injustice?”
“Ihatethe press,” I told her, upping the ante. “I’ve seen them exaggerate and fabricate and lie. But I don’t think he’s lying now.” To Ben, I said, “You promised you wouldn’t have a recording device. Do you?”
He patted his pockets and shirtfront, held out his arms. “Nothing. I just wanted to warn you about what may be happening, and hey,” he was addressing Jay now, “there’s a risk for me, too. They find out I’m talking to you while Chris’s court case is ongoing, and I’m in trouble.”
“Damn right,” said Jay, his second warning in as many minutes.
Ben came a step closer. He seemed oddly hurt. To Grace, he said, “You would never talk about your past. I told you I would never write about anything you said. I told you it was personal between us, but you never let me get close. I knew you were hiding—”
“You dreamed,” Grace broke in, but meekly, like she had been badgered for hours, not minutes, and had simply run out of steam.
“Then tell me. Nothing you say leaves this room unless you say it does.”
